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by kemitchell 2840 days ago
Here's a recent post of mine on use restrictions in copyright licenses:

https://blog.licensezero.com/2018/09/14/free-to-take-freedom...

Especially this section:

https://blog.licensezero.com/2018/09/14/free-to-take-freedom...

I know some lawyers who would prefer and argue for your reading of copyright law's limitations, as a matter of policy. But that is not the reading that I see in court decisions or professionally drafted copyright licenses, which impose blanket use and purpose restrictions all the time.

To your point, copyright law is "default deny". (See also: https://oss.kemitchell.com/#defaults-and-overrides) Take as given that the uncertainty you describe is as serious as you present it. Who does that uncertainty benefit, in context? Consider: https://opensource.google.com/docs/using/agpl-policy/

1 comments

I read both those blog posts, which manage to be both over-long and free of concrete content. Which particular part of them do you feel is relevant to this thread?

  > But that is not the reading that I see in court decisions
  > or professionally drafted copyright licenses, which impose
  > blanket use and purpose restrictions all the time.
Please link to an American, Canadian, or EU court decision holding that restrictions on use are enforceable via copyright law. I'll also accept a recent ruling that execution of a copyrighted program does not automatically qualify as fair use.
You can see a response I've just posted on Vernor and Deutschlandradio. You may also wish to peruse common proprietary license forms, as I mention in Free to Take Freedom Post.

I won't be providing you any further comments. If you have need of specific guidance in this legal area, please seek your own legal counsel.